Expanding access to treatment for mental health and opioid abuse is a top priority in President Obama’s fiscal 2017 budget.
The budget plan released Tuesday contains $1 billion in new funding over the next two years to boost efforts to help individuals seek treatment for opioid abuse, the document said.
It also includes $500 million in new mandatory funds for the next two years to increase the behavioral health workforce and work more with individuals with serious mental illness.
The opioid funding, which was previously announced by the administration, would primarily go to states.
“States can use these funds to expand treatment capacity and make services more affordable to those who cannot afford it,” the budget said.
It also would expand the National Health Service Corps’ workforce.
The budget also includes an extra $500 million to expand efforts by the federal government to expand state-level prevention strategies such as access to the overdose antidote naloxone.
For mental health, an issue that has received bipartisan attention in Congress, the budget would work to decrease any treatment gaps among lower-income and higher-income people.
It also will fund new strategies “to address the increasing number of suicides by older adults,” the budget said.
Combating opioid abuse and mental health have generally received bipartisan support on the hill, but Republicans aren’t happy with the budget overall.
“This isn’t even a budget so much as it is a progressive manual for growing the federal government at the expense of hard-working Americans,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday.
